Tag: Currency

With a current market cap of over $143 billion, cryptocurrencies are changing the way we understand finance and economics. For perspective, Facebook has a value of $496.0 billion, or 3.46 times the entire market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies worldwide. 2017 saw the price of one Bitcoin exceed the value of one ounce of gold, and new blockchain currencies have followed suit.

Bitcoin — $69.5 Billion

Ethereum — $27.7 Billion

Ripple — $7.4 Billion

Bitcoin Cash — $7.3 Billion

Litecoin — $2.8 Billion

Since its founding in 2009, Bitcoin has grown to be the largest cryptocurrency — with over 16.5 million bitcoins on public ledgers and a market capitalization comparable to Paypal‘s. Bitcoin’s acceptance and popularity paved the way for future cryptocurrencies, and can now be used to purchase everything from food to vehicles to vacation packages and real estate!

Ethereum — $27.7 Billion

As the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, Ethereum has developed a unique story since its inception in 2015. Ethereum’s hack — a loss of around $30 million — led to a split, and cryptocurrency news outlets are predicting another before the end of 2017. While Ethereum may not be as widely accepted by merchants as its older brother, Bitcoin, rapid growth has catapulted Ethereum’s market cap above Expedia’s ($21.7 billion).

Ripple — $7.4 Billion

With roots tracing back to as early as 2004, it’s quite possible that the innovation behind Ripple was one of the earliest predecessors to blockchain currencies. While Bitcoins are mined, Ripple has a predetermined set of coins, a centralized transaction ledger, and a different protocol for verifying purchases that make it faster than Bitcoin. With a value of over $7.4 billion, Ripple has a market capitalization greater than the successful online real estate platform Zillow.

Bitcoin Cash — $7.3 Billion

As Bitcoin outgrew its infrastructure, developers searched for a way to decrease the wait time for bitcoin transactions without opening the currency to the type of spam that had inspired the original limits. Enter: Bitcoin Cash. With a blocksize of 8MB instead of 1MB, Bitcoin Cash was designed to be the faster, more secure, decentralized peer-to-peer cryptocurrency of the future. While relatively young, Bitcoin Cash has a market cap of $7.3 billion, larger than value of Brighthouse Financial ($7.2 billion).

Litecoin — $2.8 Billion

As one of the early adopters of cryptocurrency technology, former Google engineer Charles Lee created Litecoin in 2011 to improve speed and security for transaction confirmations within a blockchain. While the smallest on the list, Litecoin has an active community of users and developers with a market capitalization of $2.8 billion — equal to the local discount promotion company Groupon.

With surging popularity and growing market capitalization, cryptocurrencies are here to stay. The future of information security, financial legislation, and economic growth will factor into widescale utilization and development of this new asset class, but year-over-year growth and technological innovation illustrate a promising start for cryptocurrencies around the world.

The Rupee on Thursday breached the 68.86 mark as upbeat economic data strengthened the prospect for higher US interest rates, while the dollar’s bull run continued as US bond yields hovered near multi-year highs.

We look at five factors why rupee hits all time low.

FII outflows: The government’s demonetisation drive and Trump’s election win has prompted FIIs to withdraw money from Indian stocks and invest overseas. A day after Trump won, FIIs pulled out Rs 1,440 crore from the Indian market. The demonetisation drive of the government has also led to investors pulling out money from demand-led and consumption stocks. The movement of rupee and FIIs flow has been directly proportional to each other.

So far in November, FIIs have sold a combined $3.18 billion in local equity and debt, the steepest selling seen in three years.

US Federal Reserve Rate Hike: Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen has announced that trump’s election has done nothing to change the federal reserve’s plans for a rate increase “relatively soon.”A rate hike in US will lead to flow of money from emerging markets leaving their currencies and assets vulnerable to the negative risks.

Donald Trump win: The rupee has fallen against the dollar since Donald Trump won the presidential election in the US on November 9, 2016. from the 66.43 level then, it reached 68.86 mark today.

Weak domestic market: The Sensex is down more than 4 per cent since demonetisation drive was announced. the negative market sentiment has affected the currency since november 8.

Dollar rise: The US dollar has been rising steadily on expectations that president-elect Donald Trump’s policies will boost the US economy. It recently sprinted to a more than 13-1/2 year high against a basket of major currencies.

India’s benchmark 10-year sovereign bond yield has tumbled 51 basis points this month, on course for the biggest drop since May 2010, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s move to withdraw 86 percent of currency in circulation has the public rushing to banks to exchange bills. Lenders will use that money to buy bonds.